Re: Ubuntu Alaska LoCo

Im in Wasilla, over the last 2 weeks Ive dumped windows from all my boxes except my mediasmart server, thats next. Ive played with Ubuntu on and off from 8-9 but never been serious about it until I became a tech.

Re: Ubuntu Alaska LoCo

Hello everyone,

I'm in Sitka, and I've been using ubuntu for about two years now. I teach high school math and science, and I did an interesting project this year with students. Our school district is at a low point technology-wise, so I ran a project in which our school got a bunch of computers donated, and students learned to install ubuntu on them. Most are older dells that only ran 8.04 adequately, but students loved the project. We will run the program again in the fall, with a focus on more selective donations, and higher-level use of what we set up. Most of the computers are only used for word processing and spreadsheet-based graphing so far, although one teacher ran a successful graphic-design class based on inkscape.

The program has a lot of things going for it, and we will continue the work even when our district replaces our aging technology. For example, students were skeptical that anyone would want to donate working computers to us. Seeing people bring in computers made students think differently about their place in the community. Others did not believe you could fix a computer that was full of viruses, or only showed a blue screen of death. They were surprised to see a nonfunctional computer brought back to life. It was pretty cool to see the many different ways that open source culture influenced a school community for the better. Having experienced OS first-hand, our students will not want to give it up entirely, no matter what technology the district invests in. It will be pretty interesting to build a school technology setting that has open source systems and proprietary systems sitting side by side, and see students use each for what it does best.

We may explore the possibility of starting a Sitka Linux users group in the fall. I'm not sure how far we will take it, but I am pretty set on hosting one or two events to find out how many linux users are in Sitka. I am guessing that, if set up right, there are many people who would love the chance to play with Linux on donated computers, where they don't have to worry about messing up their own machines.

Any Sitka folks out there? Any Alaskan educators interested in doing something like this? Our small, self-contained communities seem perfect for projects like this. And in an urban setting, I can only imagine you could get a bunch of year-old computers donated and build an impressive program.

Re: Ubuntu Alaska LoCo

Japhyr, Great Job. Way to break the M$ cycle of education. Nice to see someone educating the options in the OS Market. If you need anything from us please let us know. We are a small group and not very active at the moment but we will do what we can. For a more active group and something to model your LUG after please look up AKLUG.